Entries in Professor
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University North Carolina at Chapel Hill professor Paul Frampton is seen in this undated photo. (Paul Frampton)(CHAPEL HILL, N.C.) -- A 68-year-old physics professor who has spent the past 10 months in an Argentine jail cell awaiting trial on drug charges has asked the University of North Carolina to give him a raise.

Paul Frampton, who is embroiled in litigation with the university to have his $107,000 salary reinstated while he is in prison, made his case in a letter to Provost Bruce Carney that he should also be paid twice as much.

"This is another example of his chutzpah," said Mark Williams, a UNC math professor. "Most people would think its crazy for a man in prison to ask for a raise, but if you look closely, he has a good case."

The physicist, who said he fell victim to a con artist in Argentina, wrote that he ranks 18th out of 28 professors in his department in terms of pay, despite the fact he is the department's most-cited author.

Frampton has not received a paycheck since March 1, when the university placed him on leave. Under university policy, nine-month faculty members, such as Frampton, are eligible for up to 60 calendar days of paid leave per year.

"Professor Frampton remains a valued member of the faculty, and we hope he can and will return to campus to resume his duties when his personal circumstances permit," UNC spokeswoman Karen Moon told ABC News. She declined to comment on Frampton's request for a raise, citing the ongoing litigation.

The tenured professor has been awaiting trial since his Jan. 23 arrest, when authorities at the airport in Buenos Aires found 2 kilograms of cocaine in the lining of his luggage.

Frampton claims he fell into a "honey trap," and had been visiting the country to meet up with a bikini model he met online. Instead, the professor came into contact with a man acting as an intermediary, who asked him to carry the model's empty suitcase.

Supporters, such as Williams, who has known Frampton for 27 years, said they believe the professor was duped.

"He has been known to show terrible judgment in many situations," Williams said. "He's excessively naive and possibly pathologically naive for a person his age."

As he awaits trial in Argentina, the decorated physicist has continued his research in the overcrowded Villa Devoto prison in Buenos Aires.

During his time in prison, Frampton has remained "extremely productive," Williams said. The professor has written at least three articles, one of which has been published in a leading physics journal, and his citations have increased significantly, according to Williams.

"I think some people are going to be offended by Paul asking for a raise," Williams said. "The important thing is even if Paul had not been in prison, he would still have an extremely strong argument. His salary is a disgrace, and it needs to be corrected."

Michigan State University(EAST LANSING, Mich.) -- A Michigan State University professor was taken into protective custody Monday after taking off his clothes in front of his class and shouting in the school hallway.

In a statement posted on the university website, the university said that a call came in to the local police dispatch center just after 1 p.m. “about a man in the Michigan State University Engineering Building shouting in the hallway.”

“MSU police responded and took the man, a university professor, into protective custody and transported him to a local hospital,” the school said. “No one was injured and the professor is not being charged with a crime.”

Students posting on social media named the professor, but the university spokesman would not confirm the man’s identity.

Monday afternoon a student posted a photo on the social media website Reddit with the comment, “My math teacher just stripped naked during class and was arrested! Go MSU!”

Another student described what happened in greater detail.

“I was in Calc 1 at Michigan State University, and my teacher was always pretty eccentric, but today he went overboard. Half way through class he started screaming at us, swearing left and right,” the student said. “He then started slamming his hands on the window and pressing his face against it, still screaming. Eventually he walked out and down the hallway to the end, all while screaming. He then came back into the classroom and took off his clothes, except for his socks. You know someone’s crazy when they leave their socks on lmao. At this point everyone in class ran out. We were literally scared for our lives. The police took about 15 minutes to get here and during this time he continued walking around screaming.”

Another student posted, “As someone who is also in this class, I can confirm his eccentricity. He wore the same set of clothes every single day up until today and his mind never seemed to be stable. Everyone in the class could probably have seen this coming from day one, it was just a matter of time until it happened. He made the weirdest analogies, the most notable being about beating his wife.”

The university said the school’s counseling center “has reached out to students who may have witnessed the incident to offer any support they need.”

Burke/Triolo Productions/Thinkstock(ATHENS, Ga.) -- A respected University of Georgia professor snared in a prostitution sting is allowed to keep his job, at least for now.

After Max Reinhart, a German literature professor at UGA since 1988, listed his phone number in the transsexual escort services section of Backpage.com, Gwinnett County police arranged to meet him at a motel room Reinhart had rented in Norcross. Dressed as a woman and going by the name "Sasha," Reinhart offered an undercover detective $60 for half an hour's worth of services. But as soon as the money changed hands, officers arrested Reinhart, police spokesman Cpl. Jake Smith said.

Reinhart, 65, faces up to a year in jail for misdemeanor charges of prostitution and keeping a house of prostitution, but for now, he can keep his UGA professorship.

Rather than go through the costly tenure revocation process necessary to fire Reinhart, who has held tenure since 1994, the university struck a deal. Under an agreement reached a week ago between Reinhart's attorney and attorneys for the University System of Georgia, UGA will keep Reinhart on its payroll until next May, although he will not be allowed to teach, UGA spokesman Pete Konenkamp said. In exchange, Reinhart will not sue the university for any reason.

"[Reinhart] will not re-enter the classroom, and he will not teach in any capacity," Konenkamp said. "He will be allowed to continue the research he has already been doing until he resigns in May 2013."

Konenkamp said the agreement with Reinhart will stand "no matter what" the outcome of Reinhart's trial at Gwinnett County Magistrate Court, which is not yet scheduled.

Calling the actions that led to his arrest a "temporary meltdown," Reinhart told ABC News Friday that the university has treated him "fairly and kindly," and that he has received an outpouring of support from students and faculty members.

"Under the circumstances, I hold no grudges," Reinhart said. "I'm devastated by the whole thing, as are a lot of people. I admire my university for doing what they're able to do."

Martin Kagel, the head of the department, told the Red & Black, UGA's student newspaper, that Reinhart is a "respected and valued colleague."

An author and editor of eight books, Reinhart is an expert on early modern Germany. Until UGA barred him from the classroom, he was scheduled to teach a course this fall on the influence of Islam on the German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, according to the school's Germanic and Slavic Studies department website.

iStockphoto/Thinkstock(BOSTON) -- An elderly math professor who sought refuge in the U.S. as a former Soviet dissident has been charged with turning her Massachusetts home into a meth lab.

Irina Kristy, 74, an adjunct math professor at Suffolk University and lecturer at Boston University, was charged this week with conspiracy to violate drug laws, drug violation near a school and distribution of methamphetamine. Her son, Grigory Genkin, 29, was charged with the same crimes in November.

Police found numerous empty boxes of pseudoephedrine, as well as cans of solvents and chemicals known to be used in methamphetamine production, according to the police report.

Documents from the DEA show that authorities also found soda bottles filled with cloudy liquids, presumed to be by-products of the cooking process, according to the Somerville Journal.

Kristy, the owner of the home, told the Journal she did not know anything about the operation following the drug bust.

The police report, however, stated that police believed Kristy was at least somewhat involved in the crime.

Neither Kristy nor her son responded to calls from ABC News Monday.

Following the search, an arrest warrant for Kristy's husband, Sergei Genkin was issued, and he soon turned himself in to police. He was released on $1,000 bail and will have a preliminary hearing in Somerville District Court this month.

Kristy was charged this week. Officials at Suffolk University, where she has been an adjunct professor since 1985, said she has been placed on administrative leave through the end of the semester, and was not reappointed for the spring semester. A spokesman for Boston University, where she has lectured since 1987, did not want to comment.

Comstock/Thinkstock(PHILADELPHIA) -- A La Salle University professor, Jack Rappaport, has been suspended for allegedly hiring strippers to give lap dances at an extra-credit seminar on business ethics.

Rappaport was in the front of the classroom and three bikini-clad and miniskirted women were on top of him giving him a lap dance, according to Brad Bernardino, a sophomore at La Salle who attended the March 21 session. At various other times, Bernardino added, the strippers gave willing students lap dances, and a PowerPoint presentation related to business ethics ran in the background.

Officials at La Salle University, a Catholic university in Philadelphia, said they were "very concerned" about the allegations and have "launched a full-scale investigation into what took place and who was responsible."

"Until the investigation has been completed," the university said in a written statement, "it would be unfair to those involved to disclose any further information, let alone suspicions or allegations. While the university is proceeding as quickly as possible, we recognize the importance of guarding against a rush to judgment in this situation."

The 57-year-old Rappaport's seminar reportedly cost each student $150 to attend and earned the students extra credit in Rappaport's business class.

Rappaport's biography on the La Salle University website says he has been an assistant professor of business management there since 1979.

"I try to enrich my teaching by using interesting real life applications such as the use of the horse race betting market in the teaching of statistics," Rappaport writes on his personal page.

Hemera Technologies/ThinkStock(CHICAGO) -- A Northwestern University professor who recently came under fire for allowing a live sex demonstration on the university’s campus has issued a statement apologizing for the fallout that followed the demonstration.

J. Michael Bailey issued the statement on Saturday saying that he should not have allowed the demonstration to take place, and that he apologizes for upsetting some people.

The incident took place Feb. 21 in the Ryan Family Auditorium on Northwestern’s Evanston campus, where a man used a sex toy to pleasure his girlfriend in an after-class sex show in the presence of students. The demonstration shot Northwestern into national news headlines as some expressed their opposition to the act.

Bailey, a psychology professor at the school, says he will not allow such an incident to happen again, but stated that he sees absolutely no harm in what happened.

Photo Courtesy -- ABC News(ATLANTA) -- A teacher at a Georgia university has been arrested after allegedly stripping off all his clothes and standing naked in front of the accounting class he was lecturing.

Raymond Taylor, a part-time teacher at Kennesaw State University, was arrested and charged with public indecency on Dec. 6.

Taylor's affiliation with the university has been "terminated effective immediately," according to Frances Harrison, a spokeswoman for the university, who issued a statement on the arrest.

"He will not return to his part-time teaching post, nor have access to the campus," Harrison said.

Taylor was released after spending a night in the Cobb County Adult Detention Center on a $5,000 bond, according to the Cobb County Sheriff's Office.

Declining to talk about the incident, Taylor told ABC News’ Atlanta affiliate WSB-TV that "what happened is between him and his students."

The alleged incident took place on Nov. 30 at around 4:30 p.m. during the final accounting class of the fall semester, according to the university.